Airplanes
by Black-Angel-001
Summary: One-shot for the season finale.  Danny is trying to figure out what he should do: help Steve and Kono, or go back to New Jersey to be with Rachel and Grace.  And really, why shouldn't he choose the latter? Rated for use of swear words.


**Airplanes**

**Black-Angel-001: pretty much based entirely on the season finale and the song 'airplanes' by b.o.b...there won't be any solving or getting steve out of jail in this...this is purely for danny and his perspective. enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own the show or anything related to it.**

**Airplanes**

Danny drove down dark and deserted streets, content to share the road with the few cars that were out that late. He didn't have a destination; where would he go? Rachel and Grace were gone, on a flight to New Jersey, Steve was being booked at HPD, Chin was probably doing the booking, Kono was probably sitting at home wondering how the hell her life had gone to shit so fast.

Well, so was he.

How did they go from investigating the murder of the govoner's secretary to his partner being arrested for the govoner's murder? How did Danny go from delirously happy yesterday to miserable and lost today? How did any of this happen?

Danny didn't have any answers yet. He knew he should be working on getting Steve cleared, but he needed a minute. Hell, he needed more than a minute. Danny needed a whole fucking lifetime. He didn't have a lifetime, and he barely had a minute, but he took it anyway. Just get enough time to clear his head, settle himself as much as possible, before jumping in head first to clear his parnter.

_Why?_

The question popped in his head so quickly and violently that Danny actually swerved a little over it. Startled, he blinked at the road, wondering where the hell that had come from.

_Why do you need to do anything? Why don't you just get on another flight headed to Newark and leave this pisshole island and all the headache it caused behind? What do you owe any of these people?_

It was the selfish part of him, the part that wanted to put everything else second and take his own happiness in both hands and hold it tightly. It was the part of him that him that he hardly listened to, except when he moved to Hawaii to be with Grace. Danny always put others first, wether it was his family, his wife or child, his partner, his team. It was part of why he was a good cop, he thought. But with those questions posed by a deeper and darker part of his mind, he considered them, seriously.

Why did he need to do anything? Why didn't he get on another flight to Newark? What did he owe these people, any of them?

Danny glanced over at the passenger seat where his badge and gun were laying. He'd tossed them there after tearing away from the govoner's mansion, didn't want to think about them. But looking at them for that second, he did think about them. He thought about the weight that gold badge put on his hip, the even bigger weight it put on his shoulders. He thought about the two oaths he'd taken, one in Newark, New Jersey, the other in Honolulu, Hawaii. He had sworn, twice in his life, to uphold the law and protect the citizens of the two states to the best of his ability. Danny had always considered that to be a high honor, and took the oath seriously. He needed to do something because it was his duty as a police officer of the law, to ensure that justice was carried out properly.

It was becuase of his duty as a cop he didn't get on a plane to Jersey. It was because of his duty as a cop that he owed Steve and Kono and Chin and every citizen of Hawaii to do the best job he could do.

But there had to be more to it. Danny's father always told him that there was more than one reason for anything in the world, more than one reason to do anything. You could use only one, but if that reason didn't seem like enough where did that leave you?

Being a cop and following his duty couldn't be all there was to it, could it? No, there was more.

There was more in the way Steve looked at him as he was being lead to the squad car in handcuffs: terrified, begging for help and understanding, asking Danny to stand beside him. There was more in the way Kono called him after she handed over her gun and badge: voice sullen and defeated, scared and confused, asking Danny without doing it verbally to fix things. There was more in the way Chin stared at Danny over the hood of the same car he'd just put Steve in: hurt, asking for understanding, promising to explain, asking Danny to help him.

His team, his ohana, needed him. Danny couldn't leave them the way they were, not after everything they'd been through together. Danny preached to Steve about partners having each other's backs-it was time to practice it.

But, Gracie...

The thought of his daughter standing in that airport terminal in the middle of the night, looking around for her daddy and wondering where he was, it tore at him. He wondered if she or Rachel would understand, would even care to let him explain. Would Rachel change her mind about trying to make them work again? Would she keep Grace and their second child from him, permanetly, over this?

It hurt to think of them, to know how far away they were, that he hadn't said goodbye, or hugged them. It hurt to think he might never see them again.

Frustrated with the turn of his thoughts, Danny flipped on the CD player. Hard drums, guitar and bass flooded through the speakers, and a woman's voice singing. He'd forgotten he had put this CD in a few days ago. His sister Hayley had sent it to him, a burned mix of various songs she thought he would like. Danny pulled over and skipped forward a few tracks. When the strains of a piano started filtering in, Danny paused.

"_Can we pretend that airplanes in the night sky are like shooting stars? I could really use a wish right now, wish right now, wish right now_."

He left it there and let the lyrics was over him. God, he really did need a wish, a whole buttload of them. He wasn't much for hip hop or rap, but something about the tone of the singers, the melacholy of the music, made him listen. Although when he heard the lyrics he very nearly changed it. It hit a little too close.

"_...there comes a time when you fade to the blackness. And when you're starring at that phone in your lap, and you hopin' but them people never call you back.._"

Before he pressed the forward button, he paused long enough to hear the rest.

"_...but that's just how the story unfolds, you get another hand soon after you fold_."

Well. Danny paused a moment longer, then leaned back in his seat, closed his eyes. What would he wish for, if he had one chance? There was too much for just one.

"_So airplane, airplane, sorry I'm late. I'm on my way so don't close that gate. If I don't make that then I'll swtich my flight and I'll be right back at it by the end of the night_."

The pain of not being at the gate with Rachel and Grace hit him hard, like a punch in the gut. He was sorry, sorrier than he could say, that he hadn't been there. But he would be, as soon as he could. Wouldn't he?

"_I'm guessing that if you could make some wishes outta airplanes, then maybe, yo maybe I'll go back to the days. Before the politics that we call the rat game, and back when ain't nobody listened to my mixed tape, and back before I tried to cover up my slang..._"

That would be nice, to go back to the days before all this shit. Impossible, but a nice thought. But the more the thought on it, the more Danny wondered, why the hell not? Why couldn't he go back to the way things were, at least some of them? Danny had been one of the toughest cops in the burough; his street cred before he became a cop, and then what he gained after, made him a force to be reckoned with. No criminal or civilian wanted to get on Danny Williams' bad side, knew it would make things harder for them if they did. When he'd gotten to Hawaii, he had been seen as the haole, not worth much. No one really took him seriously because of the way he dressed, and the way he acted didn't help either. Although Danny didn't put up with shit from anyone (it was why he'd punched Steve day one after all) he also backed off on the attitude he'd used in Jersey.

He could change that. For this, to get Steve cleared and free, to get Kono back to herself and cleared, to help Chin bring down the responsible parties, he could go back to his Jersey roots fully. What did he have to loose?

Nothing, as far as he knew. Until he heard otherwise from Rachel, he assumed he'd lost her and Grace. 5-0 no longer existed, and although he could be considered a cop for HPD now, he was a pariah,so nothing there. His best friend was in jail, his other two good friends were in their own situations, and since they were all Danny really had on this island, there was no one who could be hurt by his actions but him.

Danny sat back as the realization struck him fully.

He had nothing to loose.

He may not owe anyone anything, he may not have to help Steve or Chin or Kono, but why the hell not? When you had nothing to loose, what the hell was stopping you from doing anything?

Danny put the car in gear and drove onto the road with a purpose. He had to check on Steve, then Kono, then talk to Chin about the case. And he was going to handle it the old faishoned Jersey way.

"_So here I stand and then again I say: I'm hoping we could make some wishes out of airplanes_."

**_FIN_**

**Black-Angel-001: the entire song fits for danny in the finale, i think. you'll have to use your own judgment on that. hope you enjoyed!**


End file.
